Spiritual Meaning of GENESIS 23:9
[2] Those who are being regenerated and being made spiritual are in the greatest obscurity as to truth. Good indeed flows in with them from the Lord, but not so much truth; wherefore between the Lord and the good with man there exist parallelism and correspondence, but not with the truth (n. 1832). The primary cause of this is that those here treated of do not know what good is; and even if they should know, still they do not believe from the heart; and so long as good is in obscurity with them, so long is truth, for all truth is from good. But to make this more clear: They know only very obscurely that the Lord is good itself, and that all is good which is of love to Him and of charity toward the neighbor, and that all is truth which asserts this and confirms it; indeed they even cherish doubts, and admit reasonings against these things; and so long as they are in such a state, the light of truth from the Lord cannot flow in; they even think of the Lord as another man, and not as God; and they think of love to Him from some worldly love; what the genuine affection of charity toward the neighbor is they scarcely know, nor indeed what charity is and what the neighbor, when yet these are essentials. Hence it is evident how far the spiritual are in obscurity; and they are still more so before regeneration, which is the state here treated of.
. Which is in the end of his field. That this signifies where there is little of the church, is evident from the signification of the "end" or extremity, as being what is little; and from the signification of "field," as being the church, and also doctrine which is of the church (n. 368). That the "end" or extremity denotes little, may be seen from the description of land, ground, and fields, in the Word; their middle part signifies much, but the extremity signifies little; this extremity is also called the part round about. The reason is that the representative ceases at the extremity; thus here the "end of the field" signifies little of the church. . In full silver. That this signifies redemption through truth, is evident from the signification of "silver," as being truth (n. 1551); and from the signification of "let him give me in silver," or "for silver," as being to buy, and in the spiritual sense to redeem. That the spiritual are said to have been "bought with silver," may be seen above (n. 2048), that is, redeemed by truth. The reason of this is that they are regenerated, that is, are introduced to good, through the truth of faith; for the spiritual man has no perception of good, as the celestial man has; but truth is that by means of which he knows, and from which he afterwards acknowledges, that there is good; and when he acknowledges and believes, then it becomes good to him, and he is affected by it as good, which becomes such in quality as is the truth which he has. Hence it is that the spiritual are said to have been redeemed by means of truth. But still the quality of the good is not born and produced from truth, but from the influx of good into truth of that quality. . Let him give it to me, in the midst of you, for a possession of a sepulchre. That this signifies possession thus, through regeneration, is evident without explication; for that a "sepulchre" is regeneration was shown above (n. 2916). GENESIS 23:9 previous - next - text - summary - Genesis - Full Page
| Author: E. Swedenborg (1688-1772). | Design: I.J. Thompson, Feb 2002. | www.BibleMeanings.info |